Sleep Ideas for Toddlers, Babies and Infants

Let’s start with sleep ideas for toddlers! I love this age group because they have their own ideas, thoughts and desires! That is why sleep challenges often arise with this age group. Here are some sleep ideas for toddlers:

  1. Don’t move them out of the crib until they are three! The longer the better in my opinion. Developmentally, your toddler will not understand why they can’t just hop out of their bed and come visit mom and dad. They do not understand consequences quite as well as a three year old!
  2. Continue to follow the routine you established when they were a baby. Changing things too quickly or dramatically could lead to “meltdowns”.
  3. Naps may be gone by the time they are three, so adjust their bedtime accordingly. They’ll be getting tired a lot faster, so that 7:30am bedtime may need to be moved earlier to 6:30 or 7pm.

Oh those cuddly wuddly babies! For the 3-12 month age group, here are some baby sleeping ideas:

  1. Establish a solid routine they will follow each night – babies love CONSISTENCY.
  2. Try not to push your baby to stay up longer, it’ll only backfire on you. This age group is very sensitive to being over-tired and over-stimulated before naps and bedtime.
  3. Bottle/nurse after naps, not before! This will break the feed to sleep association.

Looking for infant sleeping tips (0-12 weeks of age)? Here’s a few:

  1. For the first two weeks, just try to establish some normalcy in your day to day life. Having a baby is a big deal!
  2. When you’re back on your feet again, start noticing your infant’s “awake window”. An important infant sleep tip is that infants are only awake for 30-45 minutes before they need to be put down for sleep again.
  3. Put your baby to sleep in the dark, which will help them to develop their circadian rhythm (which will help him/her distinguish between night and day and determine his/her sleep patterns).
  4. Lastly, I have many infant sleeping ideas so that your infant never needs to go through any training involving “protest” – those infant sleeping ideas are for the newborn stage.  It involves developing healthy habits right from the beginning and sleep naturally falls into a fantastic pattern.
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